self-care
The Times we’re living in…
Sunday, May 1st, 2011 | Health, Massage, Seattle | 2 Comments
People are having tough times…for many reasons. The most obvious one being the full body slam that was dealt to our economy a few years back…and had been building up for some time. Everyone has different priorities…and we all have business lives and personal lives to attend to every single day.
I’ve written on my blog about how important massage is and how vital it is to one’s well being, because it’s what I do. If I were a lawyer or a house painter, I’d be blogging about how a fresh coat of paint or rock solid contract would sure help you out, but I’m neither of those things.
I can talk about how massage helps people by keeping their bodies stronger, and more flexible in these areas that tend to get ignored, since the stress of daily life gets in the way and you think you can just push away the low back pain and tightness in your upper shoulders. Believe me; you can only push away the pain for so long. Our bodies are these amazing machines, but without having attention and care and healing massage time often enough, your body will get stuck in the same bad posture and bad habits we all fall into.
Going to the best massage therapist you know in Seattle, spending an hour on the table, going home and having the most relaxing sleep you’ve had in weeks, or maybe even months…is so incredibly important to your continued well being. I love helping clients in this way and seeing how they respond to a deep massage treatment. Treating yourself well is something everyone should think about, especially while going through the times we’re living in now…
Getting the Massage You Need, When You Need It
Tuesday, November 16th, 2010 | exercise, Health, health tips, Massage, nutrition, Seattle, stretching | No Comments
There are a few ways people think about getting a massage:
“I have a pain in my lower back and it won’t go away. I’m scheduling a massage.”
“It’s been a few months, and I’m feeling out of balance. Getting some deep tissue bodywork done seems like a great idea.”
Most times, people wait until their body sends them a clear message, and it’s usually connected to pain.
Maybe this is the message you’d hear if you listened more often:
“I want to make sure my body is in optimum shape, and getting a massage is part of preventative medicine. I know that regular massage treatments help provide greater freedom of movement, ease pain, and help me achieve a more active life.”
Many people aren’t so fortunate, and they’re disconnected from their bodies. I want you to listen to your own body, and feel the healthy energy flowing through it. Try to stay in touch with how your body feels, not just every so often, but stop and listen at some point every day. For some people, seeing or feeling is a better way to picture this getting in touch with the body. Whatever works for you, let your mind guide you.
Listen to your body when it reminds you of the pain, stiffness, and lingering pain that it feels. Maybe you have pelvic or low back pain, or there’s stress you feel from a past injury. If it takes time to gain more freedom of movement after an injury, give yourself time, but work with your body, learn to move again and feel how your body responds as it heals. Our bodies were designed to help themselves and heal themselves, but nature can only go so far without intervention. Nature wants healing hands to help nurture bodies to a more healthful state.
Stretching before running or taking a long walk is important. Making healthy dietary choices as often as you can is vital. Choosing to receive a high-quality massage treatment to help you through Seattle’s autumn months is an idea worth acting upon.
What Are the Benefits of Getting Regular Massage Treatments?
Wednesday, October 13th, 2010 | Featured, Health, health tips, Massage, Seattle | 1 Comment
I asked a few of my clients that come in for frequent massage treatments if they noticed a difference in their lives by making massage a weekly or monthly part of their lives.
For most clients, the freedom of movement and increased energy levels are enough to make scheduling a massage worthwhile, and for others it was keeping chronic muscle and tendon pain out of their lives for days or weeks, and for others, therapeutic massage adds real clarity and lets them focus on the activities they’d like to do.
As the body ages, pain management isn’t just a sometimes thing, it is something one is always concerned with in a number of ways. Maybe you have an old sports injury that flares up when cold weather returns, or chronic pain related to an ongoing physical condition. Rather than just take pills or put up with problem areas in your lower back, your joints, or neck and shoulders, schedule a professional massage and experience the rejuvenating effects of professional body work.
The benefits are clear, and the more often you receive a massage, the more your body responds. Here are just a few of the ways that regularly scheduled massage treatments can help you:
• Higher energy levels
• Greater freedom of movement
• Decreased levels of stress and anxiety
• Improved circulation
• Reduction of fatigue
We all have priorities in our lives, and taking care of our health means so many things to each person. Healing massage therapy is what I bring to peoples lives, and when clients experience the type of deep tissue work I can do, they literally breathe a sigh of relief. This is gratifying to me, since I know the increased vitality and pain relief that can come from bodywork is an important part of a health regimen.
Ask yourself if it’s been too long since your last massage therapy treatment. Think about how much better you’ll feel afterward.
Yes, we are lucky to be living in a city like Seattle, full of vibrancy, culture, and so many great people. Remember: being healthy and taking care of one’s body with a therapeutic massage is an essential part of enjoying life.
Receiving a Healing Massage in the autumn
Tuesday, September 21st, 2010 | Featured, Health, health tips, Massage, Seattle, stretching | 1 Comment
Hello Seattle.
The calendar says we’re still in summer (for a few days), but the chill in the air makes it feel like we’re already in autumn.
One thing your body may be telling you is how the colder weather reminds you of your body’s stiff areas, uncomfortable tightness, and old or new injuries that need some massage therapy care.
In the hot weather our muscles and ligaments expand, and this jello-like effect is what we experience throughout the summertime. We move easier and walk faster, with the sun in our hair and the warm weather on our skin.
When the first few cold snaps occur, our joints and muscles feel a stiffness that we haven’t felt all summer.
A massage therapy session can help to restore the body’s natural flow, and help to restore your structural alignment that has gotten out of place from bad habits, overuse, and just pulling a muscle the wrong way.
Yes, your body can be restored to a more active-friendly mode of being. And of course, you want your body to act like its spring or summer, even though the calendar says we’re in autumn.
Let’s try something.
Stand up and stretch to the side, first one way then the other.
See if you can locate the tight spots that feel as if you haven’t used them in months. These are the areas where deep tissue massage work can help loosen up problem areas or old injuries, and create the freedom of movement you want.
Joints and cartilage need to have work done on them so they don’t become rigid and stuck in the same rut, kind of like the way minds need to be exposed to new ideas and concepts to they can stretch out.
Improved circulation, being able to move in ways you couldn’t (even the day before), and getting the blood moving to joints and stiff and sore muscular problem areas—all of this helps your ongoing healthy body movements.
Stretching more freely, and sleeping more soundly, are two of the immediate benefits that you’ll receive from getting an early seasonal massage.
So, hopefully this will remind you to come into my Capitol Hill massage clinic and receive that well-deserved massage you’ve been putting off for a while.
After all, a new season is just around the corner…
Healing Massage and Emotional Release
Tuesday, August 17th, 2010 | Health, Massage, Seattle | 2 Comments
A good, deep tissue massage isn’t just about healing the body, it’s also about releasing deeply stored emotions.
Intense emotions can be held deep inside our muscle tissue the same way they are stored in the brain, just waiting for a familiar scent or a stranger’s face to release them.
Receiving a therapeutic massage may dislodge some emotional layers you haven’t dealt with in a while and you might come away from a massage feeling either light as a summer’s breeze, or as heavy as a boulder, all depending upon which emotions were tapped into.
These emotional releases are connected with good, deep bodywork, and as a massage practitioner I’ve witnessed many emotionally-charged sessions when working with clients. Make no mistake, massage therapy can be intense.
We all carry around pockets of memories within our bodies and dislodging them, shifting them around, and making them a part of your day isn’t always easy. But, stirring things up can be a great thing! Getting these intense feelings outside oneself and into the light can be a fantastic improvement to one’s day.
So, consider turning a bright blue sky Northwest day into a day where you’ll receive important bodywork. If you’re in Seattle, browsing the web, and thinking of getting a deep tissue massage, also think about the healing benefits of therapeutic massage and bodywork. Maybe even the benefits you don’t usually consider. Like getting in touch with deeply held emotions and opening up more.
Turn your day into a healing day and your body and your emotions will thank you for it.
Listening to Your Body: Don’t Wait until It’s Too Late
Wednesday, August 11th, 2010 | exercise, Health, health tips, Massage, nutrition, Seattle, stretching | 1 Comment
Make smart choices when it comes to listening to your body and its pain signals.
Maybe it’s not deep pain just yet, maybe it is a recurring stiffness in one knee joint or a dull ache that you feel like you can ignore in your lower back.
If it doesn’t get some bodywork and professional attention, it could turn into a bigger problem down the road.
You receive and feel these messages, because yes, your body sends signals and messages to your brain. Sometimes these messages come through louder or softer, but the messages are coming through.
It’s you who needs to pay attention.
By ignoring these messages, you do your body and health a huge disservice—you put off a healing massage treatment for one more day.
Attend to your body, get back on the path to proper care, and a healthy body awareness.
Make an appointment and visit a massage practitioner before more damage is done.
Don’t store up your pain and put off receiving a massage. Especially right now, here in the middle of traditional summertime in Seattle, when people are more physically active, and the thought of a day hike seems like a great idea, until your aching muscles the next day let you know you’ve neglected proper stretching and forgot about a stiff area full of lower back pain.
We live in a fantastic city. Seattle is amazing in the summer, and it wants us to open up and explore what it has to offer. To open your eyes to nature and urban exploring, you also need to move past the blind spots in your life.
See how even small steps made toward more healthy physical choices can have a large impact. When you think about it, caring for ourselves physically appears to be a blindside in our whole culture, if the obesity epidemic tells us anything.
I want you to pay attention and get involved in healthy movement and massage treatment before it is too late.
Begin by stretching, walking a short distance, try a beginner yoga class, and come to see someone like me—a healing massage practitioner who can do some deep work on chronic muscle and joint pain and free up areas that may have been locked up for months or years.
Listen to your body and begin taking care of it today.
Why Clients Are Requesting More Groin Work
Thursday, August 5th, 2010 | Featured, Groin Injury, Health, Massage, Seattle | No Comments
There are a great many reasons why new clients come to me to have pelvic and
groin massage therapy done.
But the two main reasons are to gain greater freedom of movement and to live healthier longer.
Wow. Good stuff. Right?
Think about those two health benefits and consider the less healthy options—an early hip
replacement, chronic lower back pain, and stress that can eventually lead to things like
prostrate cancer and incontinence issues.
Not so good.
Maybe you have a groin or pelvic injury, or a constant tightness in your pelvic region,
and you keep putting off having professional massage work done.
Often the clients who find me through referral or word of mouth are ready for the type
of healing pelvic and groin work I do, and are eager to feel a significant improvement
in their bodies. They may have hit a wall in treatment with other therapists and know
something was missing, and are ready to try again.
A big part of feeling better is getting massage therapy for the problem areas you know
about, and having bodywork done so you’ll prevent future problems.
Groin and pelvic massage helps to open up and create space in hip joints, and relieve the stress that’s been building up.
In Seattle and our surrounding communities, people have the same stresses and problems that everyone else does in other parts of our country.
We just happen to live in a city surrounded by nature and are constantly reminded that we’re a part of nature.
I believe it’s in our nature to be smart creatures that solve problems.
Now is the best time to discover how much better your body will feel when you’re good to it and get the massage therapy you need.
Partner with Your Massage Therapist, Don’t Use Them!
Wednesday, June 30th, 2010 | Featured, Massage, Seattle | No Comments
When I hear someone say they use a massage therapist, I cringe.
Ours is the healing profession that you join with, partner with, and come out more whole with because of this unique partnership. We don’t have a massage practice so we can be used by clients.
We’re in it so we can help, heal, and take care of people’s bodies in way they never could do for themselves.
My clients come to me and they receive bodywork from a skilled massage practitioner, and in my case, they receive bodywork and massage care from someone who specializes in helping people with pelvic and groin pain, lower back pain, muscle strain, and injury massage treatment.
There’s already enough using and being used going on in our world. Don’t add to it.
Create a new thought process, and create a healthier mindset toward your body and health.
You might use a toothbrush or a vacuum cleaner, but you open up and receive a massage from the best massage therapist you can find and work on your deep physical places and processes.
Massage practitioners are partners in care, and they become partners in healing.
While it may seem to some like I’m splitting hairs by focusing on this word “use” I’m not.
Ideas matter in our world, words matter, and who you have perform your bodywork matters a great deal.
Every one of you reading this in Seattle and around Puget Sound can decide today to begin working toward a healthier body, making better choices in healthy movement, and schedule a massage treatment. The rest is up to you.
Take care of your body and treat it well. It’s going to have to last a lifetime.
Springtime in Seattle: Connecting Massage to Daily Life and Healthy Movement
Saturday, April 24th, 2010 | Business, Groin Injury, Health, health tips, Massage, Seattle, stretching | No Comments
What do so many of my friends and massage clients in Seattle have in common?
What one activity do they spend so many hours doing during the course of a day?
Sitting in the same position, and most likely in an uncomfortable office chair. Not just one day a week or sometimes, but day after day. And to be blunt, that shit accumulates in the mid-section of the body, as well as other areas such as shoulders, hands, upper arms.
You can feel it without even thinking about it all that much. Can’t you?
Over time, the body just holds onto this stress and strain, and one day an area in your back or hip gets pushed too far.
You go from uncomfortable to truly hurting, and you wonder how it happened.
Even if you just get up and do a few easy simple stretches, you can feel a difference in your energy level.
But having some deep tissue massage work done is more likely what is needed, especially when you’ve been ignoring those neck pains, shoulder twinges, and chronic lower back pain that just doesn’t seem to go away.
Daily tension gets ignored, and pushed down and held in places like the butt and pelvis area.
And since this is such a core area that affects your whole body’s movement, sooner or later, muscle and joint tension builds up and creates problems.
Sometimes when people say things like “That really gives me a pain in the ass.” they are being more literal than they think.
Please pay attention to your body throughout the day.
Listen to what it’s telling you.
Maybe it wants to stretch, and if you take five minutes to unplug from the wired world we live in and listen to the inner world of your own body’s rhythms, you’ll get rewarded with a deeper connection to your own life energy.
And won’t that feel great?
Finding (And Healing) the Deep Center of Gravity (Part 2.)
Wednesday, April 14th, 2010 | Groin Injury, Health, Massage, Seattle | No Comments
Healing massage is about many things, but there’s a basic truth: good massage requires forming a partnership. This means creating a safe space to do the deep healing massage work that you need and I can provide.
When you locate the specific areas you store your pain, you can begin healing them.
One place we store deep stress is in the pelvic region. People can gain greater movement in this amazingly important part of the body. Deep tissue massage therapy can bring some major release in the pelvis and groin area.
Take a deep breath,
and feel where it is, you store the stress and tension in your body.
If your pain is stored in the center of your body, you probably have pelvic issues that could use some work.
Working with many types of bodies and personality types at my office on Capitol Hill in Seattle 
, I understand how pain can block a person’s focus and prevent the free flow of energy that we want to always have moving through us at optimum levels.
We’ve all experienced our selves flowing and feeling so in synch with the world, just feeling great.
So we want to get to a place of feeling connected with this great sense of movement we carry within us.
I want to bring clients to that place within, and help them to be creators of their own healing. Sounds good? Right?
Anyplace a massage therapist works on, that holds deep trauma and stored pain can uncomfortable at first.
And since the tightness in an area of the body is so near the genitals, working near it can bring up all sorts of emotional and physical issues.
As I said in the first part of this article, this is a highly charged area for many reasons.
Our culture simply doesn’t support or even talk very much about the idea of healing and release work done in this area.
I want to see our blocks around this body area change, and I’m doing something about transforming this outdated mindset.
A good massage treatment for yourself is just as much a willingness to become involved in your own healing as it is a way to let go and feel healing touch that will stay with you. I partner with and join into the healing massage treatments with my clients.
We take a journey together, and the trip is about restoring energy and health to the places you’ve been storing all the lifelong pain, pressure, and problems.
Bodies are often smarter than we are. They want to be healed.
